Ancap Agency

China’s Corn Hunger Turns Market on Ear

BY TOM POLANSEK, IAN BERRY AND SCOTT KILMAN

A Chinese buying spree for U.S. corn is putting on display the ability of Beijing to reshape grain markets as well as the cost of food globally.

China this past week bought 540,000 metric tons of U.S. corn for delivery after August, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than the 500,000 tons the agency forecast that nation would buy in an entire year. The news drove corn prices higher on Thursday and Friday, to settle at about $6.75 a bushel, giving new life to the market after a three-week slump.

Now, traders believe that China is on the …

Twitter Seeks $7 Billion Valuation

By AMIR EFRATI And SPENCER E. ANTE

Even as Internet companies such as Zynga Inc. and Groupon Inc. file to go public, Twitter Inc. is taking a different route: It is continuing to tap private investors.

Twitter, the Internet-messaging service, is privately raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a new financing round that values the company at as high as $7 billion. Emir Afrati has details.

The fast-growing Internet messaging service is currently in discussions to raise a new round of private financing, said people familiar with the matter. The round could yield hundreds of millions of dollars and value Twitter as high as $7 billion, one of these people said. It is unclear which investors are participating in the new round.

The talks come seven months after Twitter, which lets people broadcast and read messages called “tweets,” raised $200 million in a financing led by venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers that valued the company at $3.7 billion.

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the San Francisco company’s finances.

Twitter’s new valuation underscores the soaring price tags for some Web companies. Over the last month, daily deals site Groupon and online gaming start-up Zynga have filed for initial public offerings, in moves that some estimate would value those companies at around $20 billion each upon their stock market debuts.

By trying to raise a large slug of money, Twitter buys itself more time to develop an advertising-based business that is relatively immature compared to its peers. Though Twitter has a growing user base, its ad system remains fledgling and it isn’t generating as much revenue as Groupon or Zynga.

Twitter is also much smaller than some of its peers, counting just over 500 employees, and until recently its executive ranks were thin. Chief Executive Dick Costolo, who took over last fall, has been working on building out the company’s executive team and advertising business.

“Twitter is still evolving its business model,” said Tony Florence, a partner with venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates. “Staying private while you are figuring out your model makes a lot of sense.”

Twitter, which was created in 2006 and has more than 200 million registered user accounts, is currently on track to produce about $150 million in ad revenue this year, according to research firm eMarketer, up from $45 million last year.

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Reuters

Chief Tweeter: CEO Dick Costolo has revamped Twitter’s executive team and slowly built its advertising business.

Mr. Costolo has said that the company has purposely limited the availability of ad space to “make sure we get it right.”

In contrast, Zynga reported net income of $91 million on revenue of $597 million last year, according to its filing. Groupon, in its filing, revealed its revenue surged to $644.7 million in this year’s first quarter, though it was unprofitable.

Today, Twitter’s main advertising unit is called a “promoted tweet,” which looks like a regular tweet—a message of 140 characters or less—and shows up in some users’ Twitter accounts or when any Twitter user executes a search on Twitter.com. People log on to Twitter to track everything from global conflicts to sporting events and natural disasters.

Twitter is currently working on a plan to regularly incorporate promoted tweets prominently in users’ accounts, the company has said. The move could significantly accelerate revenue growth by increasing the number of ads it can sell.

Twitter is also working on ways to create a new ad offering of the sort that made Google Inc. a Web-search advertising powerhouse, said a person familiar with the matter. The new ad type would differ from those that are currently available, this person said.

Much of the push to build out Twitter’s business comes from 47-year-old Mr. Costolo. The former management consultant and Google product manager, who has won over many Twitter employees with his self-deprecating humor, has also been busy building out the company’s executive bench.

Mr. Costolo has been credited with carefully managing the exits of two of the company’s co-founders: Evan Williams, who was Twitter CEO between 2008 and last fall, and Biz Stone, Twitter’s evangelist and spokesman on talk-show circuits. Mr. Williams remains on Twitter’s board of directors.

In March, Mr. Costolo brought back Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s creator and CEO of mobile-payments company Square Inc., to help oversee the company’s product initiatives.

Around April, Mr. Costolo also brought on Satya Patel, a former Google product manager, to help lead product initiatives with Mr. Dorsey. The two are now working on ways to make the breadth of Twitter content more visible to first-time visitors, helping them quickly discover information about stocks, sports and other topics and people they care about, people familiar with the matter have said. They are also exploring concepts similar to a Facebook Inc. technology that highlights posts by a user’s closest friends, these people said.

Mr. Costolo has made several other key hires, including from Facebook and News Corp., and is close to hiring a chief marketing officer, people familiar with the matter said.

The CEO had a coup last month when Apple Inc. said that starting this fall, users of Apple mobile devices such as the iPhone will be able to publish photos, links to websites or broadcast their current location on Twitter with the tap of a button while using the device’s camera and Web browser, among other things. Twitter believes the partnership could significantly help it attract new users and increase the amount of information that people contribute to the service, people familiar with the matter said.

Twitter is continuing to grow quickly. According to comScore Inc., Twitter.com in May saw 139 million unique visitors globally, up from 90 million a year earlier. Growth in the U.S. has been slower than internationally, with the site hitting 27 million unique U.S. visitors in May, up from 23.8 million in 2010. “We’re growing like a weed,” Mr. Costolo said at a conference last month.

On Tuesday, Twitter also said it has acquired a small firm called BackType Labs that helps companies understand their impact on the Web via social media sites, including Twitter.

Write to Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com

While My Son Serves

By DAVE SHIFLETT

Ted Aljibe/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

U.S. troops on a watch tower overlooking villages in the Khost province of Afghanistan on June 21, above. Today, less than 1% of Americans wear the uniform.

What’s it like seeing a family member off to Iraq, and perhaps beyond?

The question comes up regularly these days as our 26-year-old son prepares to ship out. Kids in our middle-class world tend to head for college or for the sort of job that eventually convinces them that college isn’t such a bad idea after all. Some friends wonder how our son ended up a sergeant in the Army National Guard.

“Sarge” (as we call him now) didn’t volunteer because of family influence. We are Virginians and have served, but only when called. The Vietnam War ended before I got called up, but my father was a World War II navigator in the Naval Air Corps, transporting troops from Hawaii to Guam, and Sarge’s grandfather on the other side was in a front-line artillery unit in Korea. A century before, the man I was named after did some surveillance work for Robert E. Lee, and in something of that spirit, our son became an Army Scout.

As America celebrates Independence Day this weekend, it’s a good time to think of the men and women serving their country overseas. Kelsey Hubbard talks with WSJ contributor Dave Shiflett as his son is about to be deployed to Iraq.

He is, to be sure, a good demographic fit: Over two-thirds of our armed forces are white, most are male, and Southerners continue to be well-represented in the ranks. There was also his early fascination with soldiers and guns, but that’s true of many boys.

Sarge has always possessed one habit of mind seemingly at odds with military life, which many critics insist is fit only for drones. He possesses what we lovingly call a hard head, an independent streak that, as it happens, is an inherited characteristic.

After his enlistment I had to ask why he would join an organization where taking orders is a way of life. “It’s how you get to the big game,” he replied. Put another way, he’s a single young man looking for adventure—and perhaps meaning—and tends to believe that the people who man the office cubicles are the real drones.

He certainly chose an unusual path: Fewer than 1% of Americans wear the uniform these days. That, in turn, puts families of deployed soldiers in something of a world of their own.

For one thing, you’re unlikely to bump into someone at the local tavern to commiserate with (which is not an argument for avoiding taverns, tavern life being one of the traditions that our children cross the oceans to protect).

New acquaintances sometimes seem shocked to meet someone with a deployed family member. “I’m so sorry,” is their typical response. You’d almost think the lad was heading into rehab or entering the slave trade.

“‘When I’m out in the desert, I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing,’ our son said after returning home. Sometimes you have to travel 7,000 miles to find a sense of purpose.”

Others simply have no experience with the phenomenon of military service. At a Christmas party a few years ago, a colleague told me, very earnestly, that I was the only person he knew with someone in the military and that my son (whom he had never met) was his only link to that world.

Sheldon Kelly, an old family friend who served with the 82nd Airborne and whose own son has done multiple tours, recalls a lunch in Washington, D.C., with professional friends when the Iraq war was at a high point. “They were all war hawks,” he recalled, “but when I told them my son was in Iraq, they were stunned. It was like I was in a different class.” None, he added, had children in the military.

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Zuma Press

Friends and relatives of the troops showed their support last year in Redding, Calif., left.

All of which can result in a feeling of isolation for some service families and an assumption of societal indifference. With so few people deployed, it’s almost as if these conflicts are not really happening.

One local couple, whose son earned a Purple Heart in Iraq, told me that while plenty of people are happy to “ribbon up”—attach those “Support Our Troops” stickers to their cars—that’s pretty much the extent of their outreach.

For the most part, however, the usual response when we tell people about Sarge is to say that we must be proud—which we are—and we must also be worried. Well, sure. We’re parents—worry is our fate. Yet we try to worry wisely. And thankfully, at this point in his life, Sarge is not leaving behind a family of his own.

His first deployment, in 2007, was supposed to take him to Baghdad, but he ended up in a much quieter area at the southern border. He did not like that, but my wife and I sure did. This time around his gun truck will be driving point on convoys taking troops out of Iraq.

While the Iraq war has wound down, there are still dangers. In June, 11 servicemen were killed, five in a single rocket attack. Death by improvised explosive device is a possibility for anyone riding those roads, and so visions of your son bleeding out as he screams for his mother can appear, unsolicited, in the middle of the night. Some level of apprehension is unavoidable.

Then again, why do we have children if not to give us plenty to think about at 3 a.m.?

Sarge shows few signs of coffin phobia, though he is not looking forward to dealing with intense heat, scorpions and camel spiders (which, he tells us, can grow to the size of your hand, hiss loudly, and sometimes charge in packs). As for other hazards: Sandstorms can be blinding, it’s not advisable to date the locals, and a cold beer can be very hard to come by.

And you never know where his service might eventually lead him. The U.S. is supposed to be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, but that could change. With Sarge’s new deployment set at 400 days, we suspect a bonus trip to Afghanistan may be in the bargain. Who knows—maybe he’ll end up seeing wild, wonderful Tripoli!

There’s a saying that when one family member deploys, the entire family deploys. What often isn’t said is that, despite the definite downsides to military deployment (including the possibility of becoming a casualty and, at the very least, long separations), it has a strange knack for bringing people together and even making life better.

“There’s a saying that when one family member deploys, the entire family deploys.”

Sarge’s 2007 deployment had some positive health benefits for me, though for nonheroic reasons. Here’s why: If your soldier is killed (not a great possibility, though some parents lose sight of that), there will be a knock at your door. Accordingly, if you happen to be home in the afternoon when the FedEx guy drops by, you might experience an unwelcome cardiac jolt.

To avoid that experience I took up walking, often logging 30 to 40 miles per week. Not quite boot camp, but the exercise probably added a few years to my life.

There are also moments that simply would not have happened were it not for deployment. I remember a call from our son (via cellphone) who said he was out in the middle of the desert under a bright canopy of stars. Despite a short voice delay, the reception was incredible.

Zuma Press

A yellow ribbon on a barn

“You out there by yourself?” I asked.

“No, Dad. I have my machine gun.”

It was a strange, intense moment of bonding, even though he was probably 7,000 miles away.

Deployment also cured me of a lingering cable-TV habit. Whatever patience I once had for the chattering class—make that the braying class—disappeared. I don’t know what is worse: raving about how our soldiers are “mercenaries” or hearing a parlor patriot (go get ‘em, boys!) suggest that because recent conflicts are “low-casualty” (compared with Vietnam, Korea and the world wars), they are nothing to get worked up about. As my friend Sheldon pointed out, it does seem that the people with the biggest heart for war never seem to have any blood on the line.

It is undoubtedly true that war is good not only for munitions makers but also for what a friend calls the “prayer life.” In the run-up to Sarge’s 2007 deployment, a celestial petition entered my mind so effortlessly and naturally that I assumed the same has been true for soldiers’ parents through the ages: If a life must be taken, take mine and spare his.

Deployment can also be a positive experience for soldiers. After returning home, our son said that “when I’m out in the desert, I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.” Sometimes you have to travel 7,000 miles to find a sense of purpose, and many men, I suspect, may come to wish they had made a similar journey.

It’s my impression that men like me, who never served, often feel that we’ve missed out on an important part of life. We don’t know what it’s like to be young and far away from home, vulnerable to instant personal extinction but also part of the comradeship that such danger creates. In this sense my son’s service is a far greater thing than I have ever done.

Back home from deployments, soldiers can experience a vast array of problems, from nervousness while driving under an overpass (ambush?) or in traffic (since cars in today’s war zones can carry bombs) to the more serious manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder. The military offers some support. A Department of Defense service called MilitaryHomefront provides support for those suffering from various maladies, including combat stress, domestic abuse and suicide prevention.

For families whose soldiers didn’t make it home, of course, there is an unfathomable depth of sorrow.

On a happier note, the one area in which deployment is nearly unsurpassed lies in its ability to bring people together for a grand sendoff.

We held Sarge’s farewell party just before June 1, his official deployment date (he won’t arrive in Iraq until this month), so grilling burgers on July 4th will be tame by comparison.

This was definitely not a Norman Rockwell scene, though one suspects Norman would have had a rocking time. A smoky cooking fire (my idea to roast an octopus was vetoed; our oldest son flew in from San Francisco to butcher and cook a pig) cast a rich haze over 100 or so friends, relatives and a few thirsty strangers, some bearing musical instruments while many others, including soldiers with hard combat experience, came armed with a host of jugs.

When soldiers and musicians gather, the alcohol deities smile broadly. Thirsts worthy of condemned pirates were slaked with passion, and as the smoke and noise levels rose, neighbors could be forgiven for thinking the Vikings had landed (though none sounded the alarm down at the local sheriff’s office, for which we are thankful). One senses that many serious head wounds required treatment the next morning, but there was the solace of knowing that the damage was sustained in the line of duty.

This party was not as raucous as the one for Sarge’s first deployment, where lights-out came around 5 a.m. This time, all was quiet by 2. The last departure was also officially marked by a ceremony in which Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine traveled to Portsmouth to shake the hands of the hundreds of soldiers departing with my son’s unit. Families appreciated that. This time, the current governor didn’t show up at the sendoff, which was held in downtown Richmond.

For now, memories of Sarge’s sendoff will keep us smiling as we ride out the 400-day deployment.

Grandmother: “Will the vehicle you’re riding around in have any weapons?”

Sarge: “Yes, Grandma. We’ll be taking along a .50-cal.”

While Sarge is away, we’re likely to see the local boys who have completed their tours and sometimes gather in a home-built “speakeasy,” bedecked with the flags of their respective services: Army, Marines, Navy.

I recall a conversation with them one night about an American flag that has accompanied them on various deployments, sometimes tucked under their battle armor to keep it—and perhaps themselves—safe. The cable TV brayers would scoff at this as “gaudy patriotism,” but to my eye this level of communal devotion is another thing soldiers have that most of us don’t.

“Despite the definite downsides to deployment, it has a strange knack for bringing people together.”

These vets—young in years but in some cases having witnessed profound horrors—were in full hoot at the send-off, singing along to woozily brilliant renditions of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried,” Paul Simon’s “The Boxer,” a deeply fractured rendition of the Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon,” and the Grateful Dead’s “Dire Wolf,” with its resoundingly appropriate chorus, “Don’t murder me!”

There was also a glorious “Over the Rainbow,” sung by a woman whose voice brought hope for better days, and then the farewell toast:

Know that you will be constantly in our thoughts and prayers.

We look forward to gathering together again to welcome you home.

Until then, don’t mess with the women.

Keep your head down, and

Godspeed.

Now, off he goes.

—Mr. Shiflett posts his writing and original music at www.daveshiflett.com.

Greek Vote Calms Markets—for Now

By ALKMAN GRANITSAS, SARA SCHAEFER MUñOZ and MARK GONGLOFF

As Greek parliament cast its vote on a nearly $41 billion budget austerity package, WSJ’s Kelly Evans, Evan Newmark and Stephen Fidler discussed the economic ramifications. Photo: ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images

ATHENS—Financial markets breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday after the Greek Parliament approved a five-year austerity plan demanded by international creditors, but investors remain wary that the fix fails to resolve problems facing Greece—and Europe—in the long run.

The measures, which were demanded by international creditors as a condition of a new bailout, eased fears of an imminent default, but market reaction was muted by gains over the past two days, partly on expectations the budget-cutting package would pass.

The Dow industrials ended the day 72.73 higher at 12261.42, capping their biggest three-day winning streak since late March. The Stoxx Europe index jumped 1.7% at 269.8, and London’s FTSE 100 index gained 1.5% to 5855.9.

Stocks on Wednesday extended their winning run to a third straight day as Greece approved debt-reduction measures and Wall Street prepped for closing the books on the second quarter. Paul Vigna has details.

Photos: Greece’s 48-Hour Strike

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European Pressphoto Agency

Demonstrators wearing teargas protection masks aimed at riot police during clashes in front of Greek Parliament in Athens on Wednesday.

The euro climbed to better than $1.44 against the U.S. dollar, though still well below its peak this year near $1.50.

Greek bond yields, which move in the opposite direction of price, fell a bit. But Greek bond prices still suggest investors are expecting a default, a reflection of the continued doubts about the region.

“We are under no illusion that we have a resolution to Greece’s insolvency,” said Andrew Lim, an analyst at Espirito Santo investment bank in London.

Bonds of other cash-strapped euro members also strengthened, reflecting investors’ confidence that the euro crisis won’t spread in the near term. The yield on Spanish 10-year government bonds dropped to 5.56% on Wednesday afternoon, compared with nearly 5.7% on Monday.

U.S. Treasuries fell, as investors who had sought refuge in safe U.S. bonds shifted back to riskier investments. “At least for the time being, the threat of a Greek-related implosion has abated and therefore the safe-haven bid has waned somewhat,” said Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist within the fixed-income group at Jefferies Co.

European finance ministers meet on Sunday in Brussels to piece together Greece’s next bailout deal. High on their agenda: How to get banks and other investors in Greek bonds to contribute to the rescue effort by agreeing to reinvest some of their maturing debt into new Greek bonds.

Wednesday’s measures, which passed with a five-vote margin, followed an intense debate within the ruling party and Greek society at large on whether the country can bear further austerity. Even with the new spending cuts and promised bailout funds, the fate of the country beyond the summer, and of the debt crisis around the euro zone’s fringe, remains open. Doubts about Greece’s solvency and its ability to maintain tough austerity policies remain as widespread in financial markets as they are on the tear-gas-filled streets of this city.

Mounting economic misery in Greece is challenging the ability of its politicians to continue governing, say analysts and Greek officials. Many observers here predict political instability by the fall.

Thousands of protesters outside the Greek Parliament loudly booed the outcome of Wednesday’s vote on the austerity package. The demonstrations turned into running street battles between police and stone-throwing youths. By midafternoon, the smell of tear gas wafted over large swaths of Athens.

Greek ruling-party lawmaker Alexandros Athanassiadis—who voted for the austerity plan after saying he wouldn’t—was attacked by a small group of protesters who threw objects at him as he walked through central Athens. He suffered minor injuries. In the evening, a protester threw a Molotov cocktail into the post office below the finance ministry, but the fire was quickly extinguished.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund had required Greek lawmakers to pass the additional €28.4 billion ($40.81 billion) in spending cuts and tax increases before releasing Greece’s next aid payment under the country’s €110 billion bailout launched last year.

Approval of the cuts, and of a €50 billion privatization program, is also a condition of the EU-IMF agreement to a second bailout program, expected to be valued at about €100 billion, that will finance Greece through 2014.

Timeline: Greece’s Debt Crisis

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That second package of rescue loans also depends on reaching an agreement between euro-zone governments and banks on a way to make banks share the burden of funding Greece.

Greece’s finances could still unravel as early as September, by which time the country must hit strenuous targets for reducing its budget deficits and implementing the agreed fiscal measures to obtain the next slice of its EU-IMF aid. Greek politicians are under rising public pressure to renegotiate at least parts of their tough bailout program, to give relief to the economy. So far, Athens’ pleas for easier terms have fallen on deaf ears in Europe.

Wednesday’s vote in Parliament is a short-term victory for embattled Prime Minister George Papandreou, who fought hard to make sure his Socialist party’s wavering lawmakers voted the government line. The ruling party holds 155 of the 300 seats in parliament.

“We have to do anything necessary to avoid the country collapsing,” Mr. Papandreou told lawmakers just before the vote. Failure to approve the new budget cuts would cause the country to run out of money, and there was “no plan B,” he warned. The measures were approved with only one defection from the governing party’s ranks.

The Greek Parliament passed the first of several austerity votes by a slim margin, prompting more riots on the streets on Greece. WSJ’s Steven Fidler offers analysis of what else to expect out of troubled Greece. (Photo: Reuters.)

European finance ministers’ target for banks’ contribution is €30 billion, but it remains to be seen how close they can get to the number. The main proposal on the table, from French banks, calls for a voluntary rollover into new 30-year bonds backed by some international guarantees. German banks have been cautious about the French idea, but signaled some progress toward an agreement on Wednesday. Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Josef Ackermann said he is confident banks will “offer a hand” to European governments.

Greece faces another critical test Thursday, when Parliament is to hold a further vote on implementing the details of the austerity plan, as well as the privatization program. They are also expected to pass.

—Matt Phillips contributed

to this article.

Write to Alkman Granitsas at alkman.granitsas@dowjones.com

Debt Hamstrings Recovery

BY TOM LAURICELLA

The Federal Reserve is just days away from ending one of the major steps to aid the U.S. economy—but the effort has done little to solve the original problem: The government and individuals alike are still heavily in debt.

Around the globe, the inability of governments and households to reduce their debt continues to cast a shadow over Western economies and the financial health of individuals. Today, U.S. consumers have more mortgage and credit-card debt than they did five years ago, and the U.S. budget deficit is worsening. At the same time, European governments are having to throw billions more …